The cult (I said cult..) that is Iain Lee is covering Breakfast this week and next on BBC 3 Counties.

Shocked yes, but only because it's a wonder that someone at the BBC had the cojones to give the guy a gig, but well done to them.

The fella has a radio CV that stretches across stints on XFM, LBC, Absolute, 6Music. He's a savvy and likeable guy, a genuine person, honest and with enthusiam to spare. Not a journo -spending much of his radio career doing his own thing - but he has his head screwed on, it would be an interesting listen if ever he gets to hold any local politcos to account.

Iain has written very candidly about finding himself on 3CR over on his Facebook page. As much as 3CR can be bring a positive influence on Iain, Iain can bring a positive influence on local radio. Great stuff 3CR and Mr. Lee.

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Hello you

Enjoying the weather? Too hot for me. I enjoy the rain. Never mind. It won't last!

The Google eyed amongst you will have noticed I have been doing a radio show for the past few weeks. BBC 3 Counties Radio have been very generous and kind in allowing me to fill in for the excellent JVS and his mid morning show for a week. For the last 2 and a half weeks I've been covering their breakfas...t show, taking over from David Prever. I'm there, from 6 until 9 for the rest of this week and for all of next week.

I really hope you enjoy the show but I'm aware that some of you won't like it. That is of course fine. If you're hoping to hear the type of show I've been doing for the last 12 years, you'll be very disappointed. It's nothing like that at all. It's pretty much straight and very formatted. I do hope you'll give it a try but do realise the LBC/Absolute shows are a thing of the past. They had a limited shelf life and we were lucky to get away with it as long as we did, but if you want the truth, I was bored of it. I really was. I feel that I had achieved everything I could within that format and it was becoming repetitive.

I've deliberately kept quiet about this 3CR show. Not because I'm embarrassed or ashamed, au contraire, but because I wasn't sure if I could do a straight show and I wanted to get it right and I also wanted it to stand on its own. I didn't want my regulars helping me along, I wanted this show to work as a stand alone piece with the stations regular listeners. I hope that's happening.

This morning, I made the decision to tweet I was doing the show. Some of you were very supportive. Hiwever, I was surprised that I actually got quite a bit of abuse and criticism for doing it, for doing something different, for trying to feed my children and for trying to stretch myself.

Here's the thing. You are of course more than welcome to join me in this journey. I would love to have you listen, call up and have fun. But if it's not for you, I wish you happiness and luck in finding someone who works for you. Maybe we will meet again along the way. But, and there is a but, if you don't like it, please don't tell me. Don't post on my FB page that you hate it, don't send a tweet directly to me criticising me for changing my style. I really am not interested. I blocked 2 people this morning for being overly critical and basically rude. I will block without prejudice.

I like Iain Lee a lot, he tries to break the boundaries, and can be brilliant.

However, how many hardworking journalists would be better in this slot?

Most of them. I would say.

When THF will managers at local stations learn that they are actually serving their public and get on with reporting what we actually need to know, and that is quite a responsibility at the moment..perhaps they need to look up the word democracy?

It might be good to put Iain Lee on in an evening slot, possibly weekends, and lets see how local he wants to be?

It should never be said that he is testing the waters for an all England Show in the evenings?

That would be wrong.?

My personal opinion is that Iain Lee should be on commercial stations where they do need a liberated voice to help in the battle to counteract the bland boring Heart culture. Or possibly the internet..but not the BBC, where the battle is about local journalism and local debate.

Further to that radiolad, here's a couple of contrasting media reports that cover Iain's departure from another BBC local radio station. Remember that BBC WM let him go a while back now, didn't they? Firstly, the Guardian reported recent events like this:

Whatever your opinion is upon Iain Lee, it's probably safer to say that 3CR's mid-mornings won't be anywhere near as interesting now! Maybe he should've tried to harder to emulate Radio Stoke's Perry Spiller, who somehow recently managed to win a Gillard award for best mid-morning show...

The best news the people of the BBC 3CR area have had in years this awful man has fallen on his ego at last. We all saw this day coming it was car crash radio and this nasty interview or should i say vile personal attack was rightly the last straw. After what can only be described as disaster period of 3 years its going to take some time to win back listeners to BBC 3CR now.